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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23722399">The First Time, and The First Time, and The First Time</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hibou_Gris/pseuds/Hibou_Gris'>Hibou_Gris</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Magicians (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Anal Sex, Angst, Bisexuality, F/M, M/M, Pegging, Post-Season/Series 04, Post-Season/Series 04 AU, Quentin Coldwater is Not (Technically) A Virgin, References to Depression, Virginity, but also Hope, kind of</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-04-18</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-04-18</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-02 22:29:10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Explicit</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>5,827</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23722399</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hibou_Gris/pseuds/Hibou_Gris</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Quentin's made it through the wilderness.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Quentin Coldwater/Alice Quinn, Quentin Coldwater/Eliot Waugh</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>107</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>The First Time, and The First Time, and The First Time</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>I needed a break from my massive multi-chapter, so I wrote over 6000 words of porn with feelings instead. The last section takes place in some nebulous post-Season Four AU, where they get Quentin back from the dead, and he and Eliot and Alice get their various relationship issues more-or-less sorted out, and Quentin and Eliot are together. </p><p>Please mind the rating, this work contains explicit descriptions of sex between consenting adults.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The first time was with Alice, during those long stretched-out weeks in the empty husk that was Brakebills with no magic, before Julia had shown up and - but that was later.</p><p>Magic was gone, and it was Quentin’s fault.</p><p>Alice was back, and that was Quentin’s fault, too.</p><p>They fucked a lot, during those weeks, but - irregularly. Sometimes multiple times a day, sometimes not at all for four days, five days at a time. And sometimes that was because Alice was actively and obviously avoiding him, and sometimes it was because Quentin had only gotten as far as his bed, the bathroom and maybe the couch in the room that was now the Cottage’s designated TV room (no more magic, might as well have fucking Netflix) all day, and Alice hadn’t been in any of those places, so.</p><p>Alice was - okay, first and foremost, Alice was <i>here</i>, which was - amazing, incredible, and there were days when it was - when things were good, almost perfect - the half-second when he made her smile and her eyes crinkled, when she said, “Q,” soft, the way she used to, like his name was a secret, when they lay in bed afterwards and she touched his wooden shoulder, her fingers brushing careful over the skin even though he couldn’t feel it -</p><p>Most days were - not that. Some days Alice looked at him like he was a stranger - or worse, looked at him with an echo of cold blue behind her eyes, like she knew exactly who he was and (was sick of him, sick of his weakness) was weighing him in the balance, and sometimes she did it while they were having sex. Once they had to stop because Quentin was going soft - Alice had been on top, riding him, fast and rough, her breathing harsh, her head tipped back, so gorgeous, and good good so fucking good, but then she’d looked down at him and her eyes had been - “Sorry,” Quentin said, “sorry, fuck, just - give me a minute, I -” and grabbed at the condom; Alice climbed off him and sat next to him on the bed, said, “Sure. It’s fine,” but pulled away when he reached for her. </p><p>“I’ll come back later,” she said, and got up and left, tugging her pyjamas back on and grabbing her glasses from the nightstand before disappearing out the door. She hadn’t come back.</p><p>One rainy afternoon Alice showed up in the doorway of his room, two full tote bags clutched in her hands.</p><p>“Hey,” Quentin said, putting down the book he’d been staring at but not reading. He was already eight chapters behind in the reading for Sunderland’s class, and it was getting increasingly difficult to give a shit.</p><p>Alice said, “I was in the city yesterday, I bought some stuff,” then emptied the contents of the bags onto his bed. They were full of sex toys - a few vibrators, a dildo, a butt plug, all still in their packaging, and other sex apparatus (apparati?) too - brightly colored condoms and packets of lube tumbling across the bed, along with handcuffs, a paddle, and a bunch of other things that Quentin didn’t even recognize right away.</p><p>“Huh,” Quentin said. “Wow. Um.” </p><p>“Let’s try them out,” Alice said, and started ripping open boxes. “It’ll be fun.” She said ‘fun’ like it was a scientific hypothesis that they had to prove or disprove through rigorous testing. </p><p>They tried them out, or tried some of them out, with varying success, but it was only half an hour or so later when Alice sat up and pushed Quentin’s mouth off the tender pale skin on the inside of her thigh.</p><p>“It’s not - ” she said. “Stop.” She reached down and turned off the vibrator, pulled the small silver oval out of her with a slick sound. </p><p>Quentin leaned up on one arm. “Are you sure - maybe I could -”</p><p>“No, forget it,” Alice said. </p><p>“Fine,” Quentin said, and sat up too, wiped his mouth off reluctantly. “Do you want -” Alice wasn’t even looking at him, was staring at the sex toys scattered on the sheets, her face gone set and blank the way it sometimes did now, like she’d forgotten that she was supposed to have an expression.</p><p>Quentin stopped talking, clenched his teeth - the room smelled like sex, he was still hard, but that familiar sick feeling was starting to curdle in his stomach (that he was failing at this, failing at - at fucking Alice, at loving her, and the more he tried, the worse it got) - maybe they should just - give up, call it a day -</p><p>“I could fuck you with that,” Alice said, and Quentin turned his head - she was looking at the dildo. </p><p>It was matte gray, not very realistic looking, not that big - or, slightly bigger than Quentin, fine, but not as big as (Eliot) - as other guys Quentin’s seen in locker rooms, or in porn, or during the one drunken blowjob he’d given to Jacob from his D&amp;D group in undergrad - </p><p>- and Quentin was maybe thinking too many thoughts here: some stupid panicky part of him on the edge of blurting out, why do you think I want that, but also - yes, yes, I do fucking want that, that sounds - and more distantly than that, what did I eat today (almost nothing), we should put a towel down (sex without magic was exponentially messier, as they’ve all re-discovered), are you sure you want to - do that for me - to me -</p><p>“Okay,” Quentin said. </p><p>Alice cut her eyes towards him, then nodded.</p><p>They fumbled with the logistics for a while - struggling to rip open the packets of lube, Quentin getting up to find a towel (because seriously, his laundry was getting out of hand), working out a comfortable position -</p><p>And then Quentin was lying on his stomach on the bed, and Alice was slowly pumping two fingers in and out of his ass, and he was already breathing too fast, already shifting his knee up, trying to make more room for his cock, to keep from grinding against the bed -</p><p>Alice pulled her fingers out, and he could hear her squeezing lube out of the packets for the dildo, even though it felt like they’d used about half a gallon of lube already - it was all over their hands and the bed, all over his ass, his asshole, trickling down towards his balls - that part, with Alice’s fingers, that wasn’t new, although usually she’d be blowing him at the same time, so that was different, and also there’d been the time - with the bank robbery, in the bathroom of the bar, the blonde bank employee (her name had been Leigh-Anne) on her knees in front of him, smirking up at him when he had said, “You can - if you want to, um, put your finger - I like that,” and Niffin-Alice had whispered in his ear, “Oh, Quentin, clever boy - or maybe it’s just that you’re kind of a slut. Are you pretending it’s me? Are you pretending it’s Eliot?” while he’d closed his eyes and burned with humiliation (not just humiliation) -</p><p>Alice leaned back towards him, put her hand on his waist to tug him closer, said, “Are you ready?” </p><p>And maybe it was that memory of Niffin-Alice, suddenly loud and present in his head, that made him think about how he sometimes still had to soothe this Alice, here and now, when she got a little too rough, when she bit hard enough to break skin, like she didn’t remember that bodies were breakable, and - all the muscles in his back were pulling tight, his shoulders edging up, and if he thought he could say, “Be gentle with me,” and have it come out as a joke, instead of not-a-joke, he would - it’s just that as a general rule, he didn’t think of sex as something that might - that might hurt, and now he wasn’t sure how to - </p><p>“Hey,” Alice said, quiet, and laid her hand flat on his back, between his shoulder-blades, where his tattoo was. “Are you - we don’t have to, I just thought -”</p><p>She stroked her hand down the length of his back, once, twice, and Quentin breathed out, felt himself relax, because - this was Alice, his Alice, no matter how changed she was - and Alice wasn’t going to hurt him.   </p><p>“No, it’s - I’m ready,” Quentin said. “Just, uh. Go slow, okay?”</p><p>“Okay,” Alice said, “I’ll - tell me if you need me to stop,” and drew her hand down his back one more time before grabbing his hip, and then the tip of the dildo was sliding between his cheeks, pushing against his asshole -</p><p>It didn’t hurt, going in, it was - he was - it felt achy, and full, and Alice’s hand was tight on his hip, holding him still - “Good?” Alice said, “Q, is it good?”</p><p>“Yeah,” he said, his voice coming out shaky, broken, and Alice made a soft noise behind him, shifting so that her leg pressed against his thigh. She moved the dildo, pulled it out and then thrust back in again, slowly, and then again from a slightly different angle and Quentin bucked against the bed, said, “Fuck, fuck Jesus, <i>Alice</i> - do that again -”</p><p>She did it again, and again - and Quentin was - fucking gasping against the bed, saying, “Alice, Alice, god, that’s -”</p><p>“Like that? You like that?” Alice sounded like - like she was genuinely asking, so Quentin managed to groan, “Yes, yes, I love it, I love you, please don’t stop,” even as he scrabbled to get his hand down to his cock because this was so fucking good, he needed -</p><p>Alice sped up, bending forward so that she was half-sprawled against him, the press of her skin warm against his even as she held him in place, fucked him until he was jerking helplessly between the relentless thrusts of the dildo and his own hand - and then he was coming, falling forward into the bed as his knee gave out, his whole body locked into a tight burst of pleasure, his ass clenching around the dildo as Alice moved forward with him, pressing light biting kisses onto his shoulder and neck.</p><p>Alice stayed close against him as he lay flat, tried to catch his breath, still shuddering - she was whispering, “Q, Q,” and she pressed her cheek against his shoulder, her hair spilling soft across his back.</p><p>Eventually Alice lifted her head, said, “I’m going to - pull it out, okay?” and Quentin struggled to open his eyes, drag himself back to coherency.</p><p>“Um, yeah,” he said, then winced at the sensation, because that was - really fucking odd. His groin and stomach were wet and sticky with come (he was vaguely grateful for the towel underneath him), and he should move now, get himself cleaned up, make sure that Alice got off too, instead of passing out in the mess like a selfish prick. He felt Alice sit up, shuffle further down the bed, and made himself roll over so he could see her, smile at her - </p><p>Alice was watching him, her cheeks flushed, her eyes strangely bright, but she looked away the moment she saw that he was looking back, ducked her head and rubbed the back of her wrist across her eyes.</p><p>“That was great, that was really -” Quentin said, then hesitated because he wanted to say ‘thank you’, but that was a weird thing to say, right? He started to reach for Alice’s hand, but his hand was covered in lube and jizz so that was probably - he sat up and grabbed some tissues from the nightstand, gave his hands and body a haphazard wipe, said, “Let me - I’m gonna go clean up, I’ll be right back -” and hauled himself up and out of the bed, ignoring the dizzy blood-rush to his head and the twinge of soreness from his ass.</p><p>“Sure,” Alice said, and flickered a smile at him. There was something - she looked so alone, all of a sudden, sitting naked and cross-legged on the end of his bed, and he wanted to - kiss her, reassure her, say thank you after all - but maybe what he really wanted was for her to reassure him, and he was trying not to be so fucking clingy - he turned around and yanked on a pair of boxers and a t-shirt instead, went across the hall to the bathroom on shaky legs. </p><p>When he came back, Alice was gone.</p><p> </p><p>“It’s not like I’ve never done it before,” Quentin said.</p><p>Eliot was sitting on the edge of the bed, shrugging his threadbare shirt off of his shoulders, but he spun around at Quentin’s words, his face almost wildly startled. “You - really?” </p><p>He wobbled, his balance thrown off by his sudden twist sideways, and Quentin had to grab his arm to keep him from falling off the bed.</p><p>“I mean - not with a guy,” Quentin said. “With -” He stopped, because maybe it was bad etiquette to talk about doing sex stuff with your ex when you were in bed with your current - with the person you were currently fucking - and also just in general, Eliot got weird and quiet sometimes when they talked about life PQ - Pre-Quest.</p><p>“Oh,” Eliot said, his eyebrows dropping down from their elevated position. “Of course.” He relaxed, slid his shirt the rest of the way off and let it fall to the floor, then leaned back on his hands. “Not exactly the same.”</p><p>“Not exactly, I guess,” Quentin said, after a second, because - because Eliot looked really good shirtless, and in candlelight (and pretty much always), a chiaroscuro of golden skin and sharp shadows; and Quentin wanted him to keep taking his clothes off instead of re-igniting another fight about Quentin’s sexual history, or lack thereof.</p><p>“And you’re a little drunk,” Eliot said.</p><p>“Jesus, it was one cup of fucking carrot wine, I’m barely tipsy,” Quentin said, not keeping the bite out of his voice this time - for once it would be nice to skip the fucking one step forward, two steps back dance that Eliot loved so much, where Quentin kissed him and Eliot kissed back, but wouldn’t talk about it in the morning, or as it turned out, ever - where Quentin practically had to badger him (beg him) into trying anything new, like that’d be the bridge too far that would finally send Quentin running for the hills -</p><p>“Okay, okay,” Eliot said, then crawled across the bed to where Quentin was sitting up against the headboard, tilted his head in for a kiss. </p><p>Quentin kissed him back, lifted his hands up to cup Eliot’s face, but Eliot pulled away almost immediately and said, “You could fuck me again.”</p><p>Quentin sighed, and Eliot laughed sharply. “What? Bored of my ass already, Coldwater?”</p><p>“I will never be bored of your ass,” Quentin said, with perfect sincerity, and Eliot laughed again, softer, less strained.</p><p>“I’m just saying - you don’t have to,” Eliot said, moving closer, his lips brushing against Quentin’s cheek, then his ear, the puff of his breath making Quentin shiver.</p><p>“I <i>know</i> - I -” Eliot was kissing his neck now, a blatant but undeniably effective distraction technique - “I <i>want</i> to -”</p><p>“How would you know, you’ve never - ” </p><p>Quentin pushed Eliot’s face away from his neck before he finished his sentence, very nearly gave in to the urge to keep pushing him right off the goddamn bed onto the floor - he didn’t know why Eliot - why he always thought Quentin needed the reminder that Eliot had fucked his way through multiple orgies while Quentin could count the number of people he’d slept with on his hands and still have fingers left over, and that the male to female ratio of those people skewed decidedly female - why they always had to have this stupid, shitty fight -</p><p>(Except maybe they hadn’t had this fight before, not really, because Eliot didn’t seem to know how - fucked up Quentin was about it, how secretly, viciously angry - wow, sorry, Eliot, so fucking sorry I’m not gay enough for you, not experienced enough, so sorry I spent the years from age sixteen to twenty-three getting hospitalized, and medicated, and hiding at parties and crashing and burning when I tried to make small talk, never mind hook up - sorry I didn’t spend that time fucking whatever number of guys you’d deem acceptable, so that I could slap a list of their names down in front of you like some sort of - some sort of <i>proof</i> -</p><p>Like Quentin asking for it wasn’t enough. Like Quentin kissing Eliot, melting into him, dropping to his knees and sucking Eliot’s dick like he was starving for it wasn’t enough -)   </p><p>But he didn’t want to have that fight now, either. What he wanted was for Eliot to fuck him through their terrible straw mattress, so instead of saying any of that he leaned back against the headboard and spread his arms wide, gave Eliot his most challenging look.</p><p>“Come on, <i>Waugh</i>,” Quentin said. “Show me what you’ve got. Take me to bed or lose me forever.”</p><p>Eliot laughed, throwing his head back, but then reached out and caught at Quentin’s arms, tugged him forward out of his sitting position until they were both kneeling on the bed. </p><p>“Well, if you’re gonna throw out lines from the movie with the most famous homoerotic volleyball scene of all time, how can I say no?” Eliot said, and pulled him closer with a wide, wolfish grin.</p><p>Quentin grinned back and went willingly, the whole length of his body pressing against Eliot’s, then snuck his hand down to grope Eliot through his pants. “Awesome - so are you planning on doing something about it anytime soon, because I’m losing that loving feeling over here -” </p><p>“Oh my god, stop, I’m begging you,” Eliot said, and tackled him down onto the bed.</p><p>Eliot went slow as molasses anyway - took his sweet time kissing Quentin breathless, then pushed him on his back and blew him for what felt like forever, like he was planning to spend all night with Quentin’s cock in his mouth, ignoring Quentin’s half-hearted grumbling about the sun coming up before they ever got to the part where Eliot fucked him -</p><p>But he was grateful for Eliot’s deliberateness, for his careful, unhurried touch, once he was kneeling up on the bed, bracing himself on the headboard and breathing through the stretch of Eliot’s cock fucking into him - it was, yeah, it was definitely bigger than the dildo - he was panting, sweating, but Eliot was draped over his back, holding him warm and steady, not moving, determinedly not moving until Quentin said, “Okay, you can - you can keep going,” even though Quentin could feel him shaking with the effort of it.   </p><p>Eliot pushed in further - Quentin said, “Fuck -” and dropped his head, tightened his hands on the headboard.</p><p>Eliot stopped moving. “Still good?” </p><p>“Keep going,” Quentin said.</p><p>He could hear the ragged sounds of Eliot’s breathing, feel Eliot’s chest heaving against his back - Eliot stayed frozen for another moment, then let go of Quentin’s hip to grab his cock instead, grip it tight and rub his lube-slick fingers over the head, and Quentin groaned.</p><p>“You have to spread your legs a little more,” Eliot said, voice hoarse.</p><p>Quentin eased his legs apart, felt Eliot slide in deep - Eliot said into his ear, “There you go, baby,” and Quentin made a noise without meaning to, whimpery and embarrassing, because Eliot - didn’t call him that, didn’t use pet names except as a joke, not in bed, not when it meant something, and Quentin wanted - Eliot was moving now, pulling out and thrusting back in, Eliot was fucking him, and Quentin wanted more, wanted to do this again tomorrow, and the next day, every day, wanted Eliot to call him baby and fuck him over every piece of furniture in their tiny cottage, out on the mosaic too, why the fuck not, wanted -</p><p>He came like that, shoving back against Eliot’s cock, still making that stupid noise with every exhale - he couldn’t stop, couldn’t choke it back - Eliot wrapped his arms around him, kept him from smashing face first into the headboard as he went boneless, then lowered them both down onto the bed and held on tight.</p><p>Eliot was still hard inside him, but he pulled out as soon as Quentin’s breathing started to even out, and Quentin mumbled into the sheets, “Just give me a minute -” a minute, sure, an hour and a nap would be better, “- give me a minute, I’ll -” but Eliot was jerking himself off, stretched out next to Quentin on the bed, his forehead pressed hot against Quentin’s shoulder - Quentin lifted his hand to touch Eliot’s face, trail his fingers down Eliot’s neck, and Eliot came in under sixty seconds, gasping like he’d been punched, his body curling in sharply.</p><p>They lay there for a long time - Quentin kept his hand on Eliot’s neck, his thumb stroking the soft skin just below Eliot’s line of stubble, then he inched closer, slung his arm over Eliot’s waist, his knees bumping Eliot’s legs.</p><p>Eliot rolled over onto his back, but didn’t pull away.</p><p>“That was -” Quentin said; swallowed, tried again, “That was so good, I -”</p><p>“Great,” Eliot said, staring up at the ceiling. “Hey, congrats, now you can check ‘Sodomy, both giving and receiving’ off your bucket list.” </p><p>“Right,” Quentin said.</p><p>Eliot turned his head long enough to flash Quentin a smile, then sat up and raised his hands, ready to cast. “Let me get us cleaned up.”</p><p>“Yeah,” Quentin said. “Thanks.”</p><p> </p><p>The second it looked like they were going to have a few free hours without any world-or-worlds-ending disasters going down, Quentin turned to Eliot and said, “Let’s go to your room.”</p><p>“My room?” Eliot said.</p><p>“Your room, your - you’ve been sleeping here, which one -” Quentin said, waving his arms around at the absurdly huge, over-decorated labyrinth that was Kady’s penthouse.</p><p>“Oh,” Eliot said, and pointed. “That one. You want to -”</p><p>“Yeah, yes, come on, let’s go,” Quentin said, and hustled Eliot down the hall to his room and through the door, because -</p><p>Because Quentin had been dead, and now he was alive, now he was <i>alive</i> (and it was wonderful, and horrible too, the way it - he kept wanting to grab everyone by the shoulders and shake them, scream in their faces, do you know that death is - is right there, a fraction of a second away, do you know, do you have any idea - it had been four days already and he was still vibrating with it, manic energy like the time he’d tried coke at that party James had dragged them to - except no, that at least had felt good, this felt - frantic, with an edge of paranoia, more like when he’d downed three Red Bulls in a row after a night of drinking, in the vague hope of staying awake long enough to study for his exam the next morning - he’d spent the whole night bouncing off the walls, while Julia had sleepily (and increasingly crankily) reassured him that he wasn’t about to have a heart-attack, or jitter himself straight out of his skin and into another plane of existence -)</p><p>He was alive, and Eliot wanted him, he’d said so, even if their conversation had been a little truncated what with all the running and world-hopping and peril, and Quentin - it would be just his fucking luck to get yanked out of the motherfucking afterlife only to get hit by a taxi a week later, or have a piano fall on his head, who the fuck knows, so he wasn’t waiting another minute, he was carpe-ing this fucking diem -</p><p>Quentin was already mostly naked, lifting his feet and kicking his jeans the rest of the way off, but Eliot was still unbuttoning his shirt - his fingers weren’t even moving, he was just sitting on the bed, staring at Quentin. </p><p>“Here,” Quentin said, and stepped forward, shoved Eliot’s hands out of the way and undid the rest of the buttons, dragged the shirt off, and then the undershirt, reached for Eliot’s belt buckle - </p><p>“I can -” Eliot said, and then louder, “are you - we don’t have to do this right now -”</p><p>Quentin jerked his head up - he didn’t know what his face looked like, just then, but Eliot flinched a little, then dropped his head and started undoing his belt buckle.</p><p>Quentin took a step back, shivered as the room’s cool air raised goosebumps on his bare arms. Eliot looked - different; of course the last time Quentin had seen him, the very last time, he’d been bleeding out on a gurney, and before that he’d been the Monster so maybe - but Eliot seemed thinner, and the beard was hot, but also made him look older, like a lot longer than a few months had passed while Quentin had been kicking up his heels in an afterlife he didn’t remember. And he kept staring at Quentin when he thought Quentin wouldn’t notice, like he couldn’t stop himself, like Quentin was the mushroom cloud rising from a nuclear blast, or the accretion disk of a black hole, something mesmerizing and dangerous -</p><p>There was a map of scars twisting across Eliot’s lower torso, pink and white lines standing out on his pale skin. Quentin looked away. Maybe he was being a pushy piece of shit, maybe - he’d thought that they were on the same page, but he shouldn’t assume -</p><p>“Do you want to?” Quentin asked.</p><p>Eliot stopped in the middle of unzipping his pants and stared at him, that same strange, anguished look: like Eliot was dying of thirst in the desert, and Quentin was holding the last bottle of water just out of reach.</p><p>“Yes,” Eliot said. “I want to.” Then his eyes shifted away, and he lifted his hands from his fly, rested them still and clenched on his thighs. “But, um. You should know - I don’t remember everything that the Monster did with my body when he was using it as his meat puppet. They ran all the tests when I was in the infirmary, but that wasn’t that long ago -”</p><p>Quentin stepped closer, reached out and wrapped his hand around Eliot’s, squeezed tight until Eliot squeezed back. “So we’ll be careful.”</p><p>“Yeah,” Eliot said.</p><p>Quentin lowered his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “Do I have to go get condoms from Margo?”</p><p>Eliot laughed, and Quentin grinned at him and tangled their fingers together, shuffled closer so that their legs were brushing.</p><p>“I would have really, truly liked to witness that, but no,” Eliot said. “I have some. I think Margo even packed a few in my bag when she brought it to me in the infirmary, like a terrifyingly helpful X-rated Girl Scout.”</p><p>“If it helps -” Quentin said, then stopped to clear his throat, his smile dropping away, “If it helps, I don’t think he - the Monster. I don’t think he was having sex with anyone.”</p><p>“Why do you -”</p><p>Because he didn’t try it with me, was the answer that Quentin wasn’t going to say out loud. “He was like a kid in a lot of ways, I’m not sure he even understood what it was.”</p><p>“That’s - good to hear,” Eliot said. “But there’s still - needles, blood -” </p><p>Quentin felt a shudder ripple through him, head to toe, he could almost smell it, the heavy metallic stench - he pulled his hand away from Eliot’s, said, “I don’t care. Take your fucking pants off,” and Eliot looked up at him, surprised, but then nodded and started yanking at his fly.</p><p>When they were on the bed - naked, finally - Quentin dragged Eliot down on top of him, and that was - skin on skin, and <i>Eliot</i> - Eliot’s hands, and the way he smelled, and his collarbone and chest and ribs and hips and cock and knees and feet, the curl of his lips and the swirling pattern of his chest hair and the mole on his shoulder, and it was all good and familiar and not like a Monster at all - (Quentin had made it to his exam, the day after the Red Bull Incident, had actually gotten a passing grade - and then crashed for the next day and a half, had slept for thirteen hours straight - he knew the crash was coming, the same way he knew the sun went down every night, that awful numb exhaustion during the months when Eliot had been the Monster, when everything seemed so fucking pointless except for the small dim hope of getting Eliot back - it would come back, just as dangerous as the hypothetical falling piano, but not yet - because right now Quentin was alive, and he could feel <i>everything</i> -) </p><p>“You should fuck me,” Quentin said.</p><p>Eliot froze, then spoke with his mouth still an inch away from where he’d been kissing the side of Quentin’s neck. “You haven’t done that before. I don’t know if this is -”</p><p>Quentin snorted, because fucking seriously - “Yeah, I’ve only had a cacodemon crawl in and out of my back, and my shoulder nearly sliced off, and my arm snapped in half - oh, and I fucking <i>died</i> -” He laughed, even though it wasn’t really funny - “I think I can handle it.”</p><p>“Wait - what happened to your arm?” Eliot said.</p><p>“It doesn’t matter,” Quentin said.</p><p>Eliot said nothing for a moment, his face still hidden, tucked down by Quentin’s neck. “I don’t want to hurt you.”</p><p>“You won’t hurt me,” Quentin said. That was probably a lie - he was too wound up for them to take it slow, too wound up to relax properly; what he meant was: I don’t care if you hurt me. (Eliot had turned to him and said, all in a rush, “Q, I’m sorry about what I said before, I was chickenshit, I was - I love you, you’re right, we work, we should give it a shot -”</p><p>Quentin had been focusing pretty hard on the imminent threat of death and destruction up until then, and so had said, bewildered, “What? <i>What?</i>”</p><p>“Sweet fucking Christ, you’ve gotta be kidding me,” Penny had said, from where he was crouched next to them.</p><p>“If either of us died again before I had the chance to say it, I - I would -” Eliot had said, but Quentin never found out what exactly it was he would do, because then they had been running again.</p><p>Later, back at the Cottage, Quentin had wandered off to the bathroom and sat on the toilet seat for a while, talking himself down from the sudden paranoid suspicion that this was actually some kind of - hallucination, an afterlife generated wish fulfillment dream - in that case, there’d be less people trying to kill them, right? He’d tried the Brakebills ‘are you dreaming’ trick, bit down hard on his tongue, held his wrist under the hot water tap - and finally had gone and found Julia, had asked, “Is this real?”</p><p>Julia had stared at him, then flicked him hard in the earlobe. She hadn’t been surprised, when he’d explained what Eliot had said - in fact, Penny hadn’t looked surprised either, or even Alice when they’d talked, Quentin stammering out a useless, garbled apology - Alice had been a lot of things, but she hadn’t been fucking surprised.)</p><p>But the thing was - what Quentin knew, deep down, was that it was probably a lot easier for Eliot to love the sad dead memory of Quentin than the actual reality of Quentin himself, the fact of him, back in the world with all his flaws standing out in sharp relief. It was only a matter of time before - so, until then? Quentin was alive, and he was taking everything, every-fucking-thing that he could get before it was over, and who gave a flying fuck if it hurt a little -</p><p>“Come on,” Quentin said, put his hand on Eliot’s jaw, beard scratching against his fingers, trying to get Eliot to tilt his head up and look at him, “come on, it’ll be fine, go ahead and sex magic me up -”</p><p>He could feel Eliot smile against his hand, but he still didn’t move, so Quentin said, “Eliot, please -” and Eliot shivered, turned his head and kissed Quentin’s palm, and Quentin knew he’d won.</p><p>It did hurt, once Eliot was fucking him, but it was a good hurt, mostly, all mixed up with the intense fevered pleasure of it - another reminder that this was real, not a soft-lit glowy fantasy, the way the room was too cold, and Quentin kept sliding against the weirdly slippery sheets and having to shove himself back in place, the way Eliot’s hands, one on Quentin’s leg, holding him open, the other jerking his cock in time to Eliot’s thrusts, were clutching at him just a little too tightly -</p><p>“I missed you,” Quentin said, wanted to cover his face with his hands as soon as he said it, but didn’t, stared up at Eliot instead, defiant.</p><p>Eliot didn’t say anything. His head was bent low, his eyes closed and his mouth open, he was breathing in huge sawing gasps; Quentin blinked - Eliot was breathing too hard, his face was wet, he was -</p><p>“Eliot, what - hey -” Quentin said, grabbing at Eliot’s arms, half-sitting up, “what the fuck, are you -” </p><p>“It’s fine, I’m fine, don’t worry, don’t -” Eliot said, but his voice was a croaky, cracking mess, and he stopped moving immediately when Quentin said, “El, stop, what’s -” </p><p>Quentin was trying to - to sit up, to grab Eliot, to figure out what the fuck was happening, but Eliot was pushing his hands away, then sliding out of Quentin - carefully, but not carefully enough to keep Quentin from grunting in surprise - Eliot said, “Fuck, fuck, I’m sorry, I’m -” and he was crying for real now, and scrambling for the side of the bed, like he was going to get up, going to <i>leave</i> - </p><p>Quentin lunged for him, threw his arms around him in a full-body hug, keeping him on the bed, said, “Eliot, El, it’s okay, Jesus, it’s okay, just - stay here -” and Eliot collapsed against him, let Quentin hold him through it. </p><p>“It’s okay,” Quentin said - as if he knew, maybe it wasn’t okay, but he had to - “You’re okay, we’re okay. We’re alive,” and that would have to be enough, wouldn’t it? </p><p>The room was too fucking cold, so Quentin pulled away long enough to grab the corner of the blanket and tugged it over top of them both, then wrapped himself around Eliot again. </p><p>“I’m sorry,” Eliot said eventually, sounding clogged up and miserable, and very young. “Shit. That was - I’m just - I’m really sorry. Give me a minute, I’ll -” </p><p>“Just stay,” Quentin said. “Eliot, you don’t - you don’t have to do anything for me, that’s not - just stay, okay, I want you to stay -” </p><p>Eliot held him tighter, said, “<i>Q</i> -” then, “I will, I will - I swear to fucking god, I’ll stay as long as you want me to -”</p><p>“Okay,” Quentin said, "okay, good," and closed his eyes, let himself believe it.</p><p>~</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>The summary is from the lyrics to "Like a Virgin" by Madonna.</p><p>The movie with the homoerotic volleyball scene is <i>Top Gun</i>.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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